An Exuberant Roman Soldier
by shaping-up-to-be-pretty-ood
Summary: Rory had met more people than he could count during his two thousand years as a plastic Centurion, but had never really made friends with any of them. The London Blitz changed that.


_1941- February_

He really need to rid himself of the damn centurion outift. It was funny to think that the notion only occurred to him after eighteen-hundred years of hanging around the Pandorica. As if people hadn't noticed it before... well, they were in the middle of the _Blitz,_ for god's sake. And he knew that there was till two more months of it.

The sirens begans and there was a slight shudder. Looked like the Germans were starting earlier tonight.

The bombing made him nervous. Despite the fact that Winston Churchill _himself_ had personally promised Rory that the warehouse was the strongest in Britain, he had seen the damage throughout London first hand.

_"Besides," he laughed bitterly, causing Churchill's eyebrows to raise, "it's not really the _box_ I'm worried about."_

_ "What's inside it, then?"_

_ He nodded. "Yes. I can't explain to you what's inside the Pandorica and just how important it is to the fate of the world."_

_ "Well then, KBO, my dear Centurion." He tipped his bowler hat. "I'll be hearing from you when these infernal bombings cease?"_

_ "Of course, sir."_

That had been weeks ago. And the destruction was growing even worse. Luckily the promises Churchill had made held true; the warehouse had not collapsed despite the incendiary bombs being dropped on it. He suspected something other than human technology worked into the building, but couldn't discern exactly what it was. Unfamiliar, that's for sure. And he supposed that it wouldn't be hard for an alien to slip unnoticed into Britain while the war was going on. He'd managed to stay with the Pandorica even though he couldn't quite shake the Italian accent he'd discovered he'd picked up as a Roman, which annoyed him to no end. British citizen, born and raised, suddenly turned Italian because he was a plastic Roman and the TARDIS was no longer around to translate for him. He sighed and sat down in the chair he'd dragged to the warehouse as soon as they'd both arrived there. No point in being uncomfortable.

A crashing sound and a roar of swear words met his ears not long afterwards, making him lunge for his sword. It was coming from beyond the locked double doors. He was pretty confident that he was about to hear a violent death, but instead there was a faint warbling, then a man in a military uniform tumbled into the room through a square hole in the door. He whirled and fired what looked like a blaster but replaced the disentegrated matter from the hole.

Rory was speechless. Definitely not a WWII advancement.

The man slumped against the door, chest heaving. "Oh... Hello!" He smiled lopsidedly as he took in Rory's outfit. "Hardly the time or place for a costume party."

"Hardly a place for a member of the RAF."

"Touche." Lurching to his feet, he held out a hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Rory Williams." He shook the captain's hand tenatively.

Jack studied his face closely, not letting go of his hand. "You're plastic."

"You're American."

"How does a Auton Roman end up in the middle of the London Blitz?"

"How do you know I'm not just a nutter in a Roman costume?"

Jack laughed and dropped Rory's hand. "Are you?"

"Well, no. That'd be stupid. How'd you get in here and why were you running?"

Holding up the gun, Jack said plainly, "Temporarily redistributed the mass of the square, dove through it, replaced all the mass. As to why... Well," he chuckled, "some people don't take kindly to getting their houses looted during an air raid. And I needed a screwdriver."

"I'd lend you one, but it's stuck in the box."

"The Pandorica, right? I thought that was just a legend getting passed around headquarters. Heard about it from the Prime Minister but didn't believe a goddamn word." He grinned. It was starting to make Rory uncomfortable.

"You talked to Churchill?"

"I'm not called _captain_ for nothing, soldier. You?"

"I'm the Lone Centurion. When the Pandorica got moved I went with it."

Jack's eyes widened. "The Lone Centurion is just a legend too. "

"You know, I've got a friend who thought the Pandorica was a myth, and it was built for the sole purpose of containing him for the rest of his life." Why was he telling this strange man all this?

"Is he in there now?" The other man's eyes flicked to the box behind Rory.

"No."

"Who is?"

"My fiancee." Eighteen hundred years and it still stung like venom.

"Man or woman?"

"Woman!"

Another toothy grin. "Now that's a damn shame."

If he'd been real flesh, had blood or a heart, he would've blushed. "How do you know about Autons?"

"Encountered the Nestene Consciousness before. Temperamental fella, real uptight."

Rory rolled his eyes and trudged back to his plushy chair. "So I take it you're not exactly the typical RAF pilot?"

"Not exactly. I _was_ a Time Agent. But now I run a business here for other Time Agents to take part in."

"In the middle of the _London Blitz?_ I'm sure that most life forms nearby know what's happening to this island in the '40s."

"Are you a Time Agent?"

"No."

"Alright, so I can tell you without killing you. It's a con. I find a worthless piece of space crap, set it on a trajectory to Earth, London, 1941, make sure it crosses paths with some sucker that'll be sure to follow it here. I tell them that it's worth something, tell him he's got a time limit because an incendiary bomb is about to obliterate it. He pays me half of what I'm asking, but _oops,_ a bomb fell on it before it's time. He never sees what he's payed for, and I scoot with what I've got, jump a time track or something so he can't find me again. Practically runs itself." He looked around. "Got another chair?"

Rory shook his head.

"Too bad. I should probably be going anyways, got a mission in the morning." Sticking out his hand again, he gave Rory a lilting smile. "See you 'round, Centurion."

xXx

_March_

"I brought drinks this time!"

Rory whirled and grabbed at his sword. Oh. Just Jack. He relaxed. "I'm plastic, Jack."

"More for me, then." He materialized the hole in the door back into place. "And I got my own chair."  
"It's not as nice as mine." Oddly enough, he felt comfortable with the human man, which was especially astonishing since he had barely been in contact with anyone for a thousand-and-a-half years, aside from warnings and discussions with Churchill.

"Be that as it may, I'm the one who can drink the scotch." He shook the bottle in Rory's face, earning a chuckle from the Roman. "And this is some seriously good stuff. I hopped into the future to get it, actually."

xXx

"Now I know what you think of my business, but I've got another catch lined up." Jack beamed. "Weird looking ship, too."

"Oh? It can't be as weird as some of the things I've seen."

"Yeah, but this one looks like a telephone booth. I'm not running a scam on _Superman."_ He noticed that the Roman had frozen in place, which was a tad more unnerving than a human's version. "Rory?" Snapping in front of his face, he repeated his name six or seven times before the man actually looked at him again.

It couldn't be. If the Doctor had fixed the universe he would've known. It would be more than incredibly obvious. He had a feeling that he wouldn't be a Roman anymore either. "What color was the phone booth?"

"Blue," Jack laughed. "If it's a cloaking mechanism it's terrible, those won't be around until after the end of the war. But anyways, there's an empty Chula ambulance in a lot across the city, and it's actually all fenced in right now... Mostly because it's right outside my squad's building. And the ship followed it. I just don't know why they haven't done a scan for alien tech, could've found me a half-hour ago. Everyone's got their methods, I suppose."

"You should go away from here to wait. And be careful, I don't like he'll like finding out you conned him." It might not even have been the same version of the Doctor that he had briefly travelled with, but that didn't mean that his morals were any less. Tricking the Doctor was definitely one thing Rory Williams never wanted to do.

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't get yourself blown up!"

xXx

How ironic, the warehouse was bomb-proof but not fireproof. He could feel his body getting slightly willowy and mushy as the heat circulated around the walls. If there was anything that Rory always remembered about the Pandorica, is that it was bloody _heavy._ He feared that the rope would break before he managed to get the box out of the building, or worse, _he_ would break. But he couldn't let it just sit in the warehouse with a fire raging around it while it held his fiancee, even if there was absolutely no way that she would be harmed. He was there to guard her no matter what the circumstances, even if it took him all night to drag the box to safety. While yarding on the thick rope with as much force as he could, he idly thought about what a shame it was that he wouldn't be talking to Jack again, his first real human friend ever since becoming Roman.


End file.
